Friday, May 30, 2014

I have for you another drawing that is fresh from the drawing table.
This time around it is an Ape (Gorilla)! With this somewhat mundane monster we conclude the "A" monsters! Not to take the simple path I thought the Ape (Gorilla) needed an appropriate twist to live in the D&D world that I am creating.
I
present to you my
version of
an Ape (Gorilla)…

Sometimes... when the wizard or druid "accidentally" permanently turns themselves into a Gorilla you really need to have those stats ready to go. You never know when that ancient tome of forbidden lore is just a cleaver trap or when the wizard is going to roll horribly at the worst possible moment... Hey, is that wizard about done with that spell to give themselves the strength of 5 men? Did they just roll a '1'? I wonder what HILARIOUSNESS is about to take place? To be honest, I think it would be totally awesome to have your elf wizard now be a gorilla wizard... think of the great roll play opportunities!

With the completion of all the "A" monsters ONWARD to the remaining "B" monsters! There are sure a lot of mundane monsters in "B", I am going to have my work cut out for me.

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

And then there was only Viserion... Back in January I shared with you my updated versions of Drogon, Viserion, and Rhaegal. Last, but not least, today I have for you the process and steps that went into making Viserion. So that we are all on
the same page, here is how the final version of Viserion from A Hidden
Agenda turned out...

Viserion needed a little additional attention after the initial thumbnail to get everything working. In no time though all was right as rain and the third and final thumbnail was ready for submission...

Viserion was approved and it was time to get drawing on this last dragon. I worked on all of them at the same time up until it was time to paint them. I drew them and painted them in the order I have shared them to you here on the blog. ...which was also the order in which I painted the original set of the three dragons back in 2010. I am a creature of habit and are only mindful of superstitions while painting. Here is how the Viserion drawing turned out...

I had two dragon paintings already done and was on the home stretch when it came to painting Viserion. Of the three, Viserion was the most straightforward and low stress to work on. The biggest challenge was to work out the crepuscular lighting. By the time I was working about the light rays the painting was done and it was just a matter of playing around to figure out what worked right. Here is Viserion coming together in 12 easy steps...

From my interactions with people this seems to be the favorite for the majority of them. I make no judgement call over this, I just find it interesting. I can never predict what people are going to like or not like. Most of the time I pick the completely opposite choice. Oh well... Here is an animated gif of the Viserion painting coming together so you can see how it came about and what changed...

And so concluded all the time and work that went into painting the three Game of Thrones dragons for the card game. RAWR! Again, here is how the final piece turned out as well as the final production card...

Monday, May 26, 2014

Back in January I shared with you my updated versions of Drogon, Viserion, and Rhaegal.
Today I have for you the process and steps that went into making Rhaegal. So that we are all on
the same page, here is how the final version of Rhaegal from A Hidden
Agenda turned out...

As mentioned with the post about Drogon I worked out all the initial thumbnails together so that they were working as a set and individually. ...and so that they could potentially be interchangeable if one thumbnail suited a different dragon better. Here is how those original thumbnails turned out...

There were some notes to take into account with Rhaegal as I moved forward with this piece. I implemented the edits and resubmitted the thumbnail. Here is how the updated and finalized thumbnail turned out...

Drawing approved it was time to paint! In just 12 easy... MOVING ON... Not as many major edits as Drogon, but there were some definite tweaks and edits to make the piece work better. Here is how the painting developed...

I wanted to achieve something different with each of these dragon pieces while calling back to the original 3 dragon paintings that I did for the AGoT card Game. Many people have expressed to me which piece is their favorite or not their favorite, for me, this piece is my favorite of the three. I have been holding onto a set of photos of a forest fire for a while and I knew there would be the right piece to use them on eventually. When I got this assignment, I knew immediately Rhaegal needed to be flying through a red/gold environment of fire and burned trees. I love yellow skies... I love red skies... I love green skies... I love skies that are not blue and the images I was using as reference had this amazing colored sky. Add in the burnt trees, smoke, fire, and a big green dragon and I was super happy. Here is an animated gif to better show the progression of this piece...

Another more or less straight forward painting. I had a clear idea in mind for the finished piece and I set my sites and got to work. Again, here is how the final piece turned out as well as the final production card...

Friday, May 23, 2014

Back in December I shared with you my contribution to the Legend of the Five Rings expansion, Aftermath.
One of the cards that I had in that set was the mighty water elemental dragon thing... Natsumi. Today I have for you the process that
went into making this piece. So that we are all on the same page here is how the final Natsumi turned out...

As I mentioned with the process post for Hida Kaiji this piece and Kaiji just didn't turn out as I had intended. While this piece did hit the mark more so then Kaiji, it just was not the piece I had originally wanted. This was by my doing and by my hand and should in no way reflex upon the client or art director.

Natsumi needed to be a water elemental of a dragon, flowing in and out of the water... becoming water and becoming solid again. I worked up a thumbnail that I hope captured that look and feel...

Since this piece turned out better then Kaiji (to my eyes) I don't feel as "bad" about it. Maybe it is because it is a dragon... or a monster focused piece, but this one is less painful to revisit. Here is an animated gif to better show how this piece came together and took shape...

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Back in January I shared with you my updated versions of Drogon, Viserion, and Rhaegal. Today I have for you the process and steps that went into making Drogon (the other two dragons will be along next week!). So that we are all on the same page, here is how the final version of Drogon from A Hidden Agenda turned out...

Since I was working on all three dragons at the same time I worked on their initial thumbnails all at the same time. I saw them almost interchangeable at this point. I wanted to do one coiling around in the sky, one flying down in a burning forest, and one back lit flying. While I had a specific dragon in mind for eat situation I could see them changing. While there were some edits, the dragons remained in their original scenes. Here is how those original thumbnails turned out...

The finalized thumbnail was approved, as was my concept for the piece and I was given the go ahead to move forward on the drawing. After a bit of scribbling on paper all done I had myself a dragon drawing...

Time to get started on the painting... and for this piece it meant IMMEDIATELY flipping the approved image horizontally and paint it that way. Cause it looks better. To me at least. In 12 easy steps you too can have a Drogon painting... or not. Here is how the painting developed...

Looking at the above progression you might not be able to notice how much the image changed along the way. Besides being flipped horizontally there were several key tweaks and edits that needed to happen with this piece to make it work better. A change to the head here, a shift of the wing there. Kill your darlings and make the changes that need to be made. Here is an animated gif that will better show how much and what has changed...

This piece was straight forward. I knew what I wanted from the beginning and made that image. It required some finessing along the way, but they all do. Again, here is how the final piece turned out as well as the final production card...

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

For the next week (or so) I will be taking a break from the internet and
will be offline. But what about the blog you ask? FEAR NAUGHT! The blog will be on autopilot and it will be posting new
content while I am offline! I will be leaving my
monsters in charge of things while I am away... so hopefully everything
will run according to plan...

You can expect some nice process posts on several dragon paintings while I am offline. Make sure you keep a vigilant eye open for these posts since I will not be actively prompting them. They will still pop up on Twitter and Facebook, but only once per day without any human made flourish.

I will be back at the helm of the blog before you know it and
will address all internet correspondence then. Have fun without me
interwebs! I will see you soon...

That is all for an exciting Tuesday, Autopilot will see you back here on Wednesday! Until then...

Monday, May 19, 2014

This is all Arron Miller's fault! He posted an image recently of a 3x3 Cad Bane he painted for Jon Schindehette's booth at Spectrum Live and shared it on the social medias. I was BLUE with envy! I wanted a Cad Bane painting... I really have come to enjoy his appearances in the Star Wars Clone Wars series. There were some little gaps in my schedule here and there... and this happened...

This piece is handled in the same way as I did with the Barada I shared a little while back. Still testing the traditional painting waters a little at a time. You would think I would just get off my butt and dive in already, but alas, nope. These smaller portraits are a good way for me to ease into it I feel. Not too huge to be intimidating while not being too small and hard to work on. Fun fact, the drawing that I did for this painting is actually bigger then the painting itself...

About Me

I began my career designing special makeup effect for movies and television. Some of the television shows I worked on including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly.

Currently I work in the gaming industry illustrating and designing monsters. I have done work with
Wizards of the Coast, Fantasy Flight Games, Paizo Publishing, Privateer Press, and AEG (just to name a few) on various book, card and miniature gaming products.